Organizational Kayfabe

Understand how organizations develop layers of collective self-deception

Alex Komoroske
Thinking like a gardener, slime mold, the adjacent possible

Organizational Kayfabe

"Kayfabe is a word that comes, I believe, is a carny word that is used and applied to professional wrestling and it means a thing that everybody knows is fake and yet everybody acts like is real. And I think it's one of the defining forces within an organization, any organization." - Alex Komoroske

What It Is

Organizational Kayfabe describes the phenomenon where organizations develop layers of collective self-deception. The term comes from professional wrestling—kayfabe is when everyone knows something is fake but acts as if it's real.

In organizations, this starts innocently: a little optimism here, a small white lie there. But it compounds across layers until leadership can be orders of magnitude off from ground truth. The dangerous part is that acknowledging the kayfabe can get you "knocked out of the game," so people rationally choose to play along—even when it leads to bad decisions.

Important caveat from Alex Komoroske: This isn't cynicism—it's describing reality so you can work with it. Understanding kayfabe helps you create value and protect yourself while navigating organizational dynamics.

How It Works

How Kayfabe Starts (Innocent): You're five levels down. Your project is yellow, but you're confident you'll fix it before the weekly rollup reaches leadership. Making it yellow risks someone swooping in to "help," which will make fixing it harder. So you mark it green.

This is reasonable. It's probably the right thing for you AND the organization.

How Kayfabe Compounds:

  • Your manager does the same thing
  • Their manager does the same
  • Each layer adds its own adjustments
  • By the time it reaches leadership, reality is orders of magnitude off

Why Kayfabe Persists:

  • If you "hit the ground truth button," you threaten everyone above you
  • You'll be "flying tackled and stabbed in the dark"
  • The easiest way to maintain the split-brain is to just earnestly believe the kayfabe
  • Organizations become zombies—individually everyone knows it's wrong, but the system lumbers on

The Fundamental Asymmetry: You can't make your boss look dumb because they decide if you're "performing." This single fact, in most cases harmless, creates the systemic compounding that leads to weird emergent dysfunction that everybody hates, nobody wants, and nobody can change.

How to Apply It

  1. Acknowledge it exists

    • This happens in ALL organizations to some degree
    • It's not about bad actors—it's emergent
    • Pretending it doesn't exist makes it worse

  2. Create space for disconfirming evidence

    • Busy people resist painful information
    • Take time to step back and be calm
    • Make it safe to share bad news without triggering existential panic

  3. Don't hit the ground truth button carelessly

    • If you expose the kayfabe abruptly, you may be ejected
    • Work to nudge and fix things gradually
    • Build alliances before challenging shared fictions

  4. Watch for death states

    • When the kayfabe becomes impossible to believe but everyone acts like it's true
    • When disconfirming evidence is completely blocked
    • When the organization is clearly doing things that don't work for anyone

  5. Design for small reveals

    • Better to surface small truths often than one big devastating reveal
    • Create feedback loops that allow correction without crisis
    • Seek disconfirming evidence before it accumulates

When to Use It

Recognize kayfabe dynamics when:

  • Status reports consistently look better than reality feels
  • Leadership seems surprised by predictable problems
  • People privately agree the strategy won't work
  • Messenger-shooting is common
  • "Alignment" discussions never lead to actual change

What you can do:

  • Don't assume you're seeing the full picture
  • Seek multiple sources and triangulate
  • Create psychological safety for truth-telling
  • Remember: if you can't change the kayfabe, you can at least navigate around it

Warning: If you're the one pointing out the kayfabe, be strategic. The organization may resist, and you need to survive to create change.

Source

  • Guest: Alex Komoroske
  • Episode: "Thinking like a gardener, slime mold, the adjacent possible"
  • Key Discussion: (00:23:26) - Full explanation of organizational kayfabe
  • YouTube: Watch on YouTube

Related Frameworks

Back to Leadership